Free The Ice King by Dinah Dean

served with glasses of tea and little cakes. Irina, who was very tired by now, fell asleep, but the others were glad to rest and look about them in the comparative quiet, for there were only about a hundred people in the gallery.
    It was a very long, narrow room, more like a wide corridor, and the windows along one wall looked into a garden. It surprised Tanya, for it was on a level with them, but she knew they were on the first floor. Before she could resolve the puzzle, Count Alexei asked her if she would like to stay for the dancing, which would start in the evening. She would have liked to say "Yes," but her feet felt as if they had been pounded with wooden mallets, and a glance at the others showed her some faint signs of apprehension amid the weariness in their faces, so she replied that she really felt too tired, unless anyone else wished to stay. But, as she expected, they all said thankfully that they would prefer to go home.
    Tanya looked idly at the pictures on the walls and the fine carved and gilded capitals at the tops of the pilasters, really too surfeited with beautiful and curious sights to take in any more, and then she caught sight of Prince Nikolai standing by the door, looking about him, using the advantage of his height to survey the room in search of someone. Without thinking, she raised her hand and then lowered it again, and felt herself colour at her presumption in thinking that he might be looking for . . . for the Kirovs.
    She was right, however, and he came along the gallery to them, accompanied by another man, a stranger, who somehow looked a little familiar. He was much shorter than the Prince and had a distinctly snub nose, protruding underlip and a permanent expression of mild surprise. When Prince Nikolai had greeted them all, he said to Tanya, "May I present M. Karl Ivanovich Rossi? I'm sure you'll be interested to meet him."
    “The architect?" Tanya exclaimed, her face lighting up with delight. "Oh, how kind of you to think of it!" and as she gave her hand to M. Rossi, she distinctly heard Prince Nikolai murmur "Sevastopol!”
    M. Rossi drew up a chair beside Tanya and said in a pleasant, friendly manner, "Prince Volkhov tells me that you have a great interest in architecture." He spoke French with a slightly Italianate accent.
    “Yes, I have indeed, but almost entirely from books," Tanya replied, her enthusiasm overcoming her shyness. "This is the first chance I have had to visit a great city and see the buildings in the flesh, so to speak. I particularly admire Neo-Classical architecture.”
    Rossi smiled, for this was his own preference, and he began to talk about his ideas for improving the layout of the city, becoming more at ease and forthcoming as he went on in response to Tanya's obviously eager interest.
    “It's all so piecemeal, you see," he said. "The Emperor Peter laid down a good basic plan, but the actual buildings are unconnected. A little here, something else there, and we have somehow to introduce more cohesion. We've made a beginning, and you will see it here, in the Palace area. Now, we have here a great open space— the Palace Square— so." He produced a pencil and a notebook from his pocket and began to sketch rapidly. "Now, to the west, this continues into Admiralty Square. On the north side, we have the big range of this, the Winter Palace and the Hermitages, Rastrelli's fine exuberant Baroque, full of ornament and restless movement, and, because it is the Palace, it must be the most important building in the area. Further along here, we have the huge solid masses, the plain Doric of Zakharov's new Admiralty. To the east and south-east — confusion — bits and pieces. So. We have cleared them away, and now my Mikhailovsky Palace is beginning to rise here, to the east." His pencil flew over the paper as he talked, conjuring up his vision so that Tanya could readily imagine how it would look.
    “It will be quite magnificent!" she said. "What will you put here, at